Afghans mark assassination of rebel leader

To them, 9/9 is day of Al Qaeda

September 09, 2002|By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent.

KABUL, Afghanistan — America is preparing to commemorate the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that launched the war against terrorism, but to many Afghans it is Sept. 9 that resonates as the date Al Qaeda laid down its challenge to the world.

That was the day Northern Alliance resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massood was assassinated by two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists, an event Afghan officials believe was closely tied to the attacks on the United States two days later.

Monday, the first anniversary of the killing, has been declared an Afghan national holiday and several events have taken place in recent days to commemorate the slain leader. Although his followers revere him as a national hero, many ordinary Afghans see Massood as yet another of the many warlords who helped perpetuate the nation's long civil war.

President Hamid Karzai, who survived an assassination attempt Thursday, led a pilgrimage to Massood's grave in the Panjshir Valley on Saturday and Afghan leaders have spent the past two days attending a seminar of speeches and poetry lauding Massood. There will be more speeches Monday during ceremonies at the national stadium in Kabul featuring an exhibition of clothes worn by Massood.

Even without the events of Sept. 11, the assassination of Massood would have been dramatic. The charismatic and energetic commander, who had a fiercely loyal following dating to the days of the resistance against the Soviet Union, led the last significant pocket of resistance to the Taliban regime from his stronghold in the north.

Government officials believe Al Qaeda and the Taliban set out to assassinate Massood ahead of the attacks in New York and the Pentagon in order to neutralize the Taliban's most effective opposition in anticipation of a U.S. counterattack.

Without Massood's unifying leadership, the Northern Alliance was expected to disintegrate into demoralized bickering, allowing the Taliban to sweep into the 10 percent of Afghan territory it did not control. By the time the Sept. 11 attacks took place, the Taliban would have secured control of all Afghanistan and America would have had no allies on the ground to turn to for support, according to Foreign Minister Abdullah.

"They knew there would be a reaction but they knew the reaction would be ineffective if they had total control all over Afghanistan," he said.

Had Massood not kept the journalists waiting for nearly three weeks, the plan might have worked. The Taliban launched an offensive against Northern Alliance positions in mid-August, just as the two Arabs were making their way across the front line for their promised interview with Massood.

Instead, Massood's battlefield preoccupations forced repeated delays of the planned interview, and it was only on Sept. 9 that the two Arabs, one pretending to be a reporter, the other a cameraman, sat down with Massood at his headquarters in the northern town of Khwaja Bahauddin.

"The plan was to kill Massood 20 days earlier, and then to occupy all of northern Afghanistan," said Mohammed Arif, head of Afghanistan's national intelligence department.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has never been definitively linked to the plot to eliminate Massood, who had many bitter enemies. But Arif said interviews with Taliban leaders in U.S. custody as well as evidence found after the Taliban collapsed suggest the Taliban was deeply involved in the conspiracy.

Assassins linked to Al Qaeda

The two Arabs, who carried Belgian passports and said they were Moroccan, have been identified as Tunisians linked to a radical Tunisian group allied to Al Qaeda. The passports were fake, and investigators believe the stamps and Pakistani visas indicating they had recently arrived in Afghanistan from Europe, via Pakistan, also were fake, Arif said. "It seems they had been in Afghanistan for a long time before the attack, training in Al Qaeda camps," he said.

They carried letters of accreditation from the Islamic Observation Center in London, run by an Egyptian, Yasser Al-Sirri, who has been linked to bin Laden's right hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Sirri was arrested in London on charges relating to the murder, but was released after a judge said there wasn't enough evidence against him.

Before the camera was switched on, Massood asked the reporter to read him the list of prepared questions. Of 15, well over half concerned bin Laden, recalled Massood Khalili, a friend of Massood's and Afghanistan's ambassador to India, who was acting as translator in the interview and lost an eye in the bombing.

Massood's face darkened as he heard the questions; he had been under the impression the journalists had come to present a favorable report about him. But he waved the interview ahead, and as Khalili began translating the first question, one of the two Arabs detonated a bomb apparently attached to a battery pack around his waist. One died outright; the other fled but was captured and killed by Northern Alliance soldiers.

9/11 changed the picture

If the theory of Afghan government officials is correct, it was now too late for the assassination to significantly affect the battle on the ground. Two days later, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, and the U.S. prepared to go to war in Afghanistan.

"What went wrong was the timing," said Khalili. "Also, they miscalculated. They thought Massood was the only one who could lead the opposition."

Energized by promises of U.S. help in their battle against the Taliban, the Northern Alliance rallied behind one of Massood's generals, Mohammed Fahim, who is now defense minister. Two months later, aided by the U.S. bombing campaign, Massood's forces swept into Kabul and seized control.